Political Philosophy Midterm

Welfarism

The view that the only thing that matters in evaluating how good an outcome is, is the wellbeing (welfare) of individuals

Constraint

A moral rule that forbids certain kinds of actions (like killing an innocent person) even when doing them would produce better overall consequences, including fewer violations of the same rule by others.

The Desire-Satisfaction Theory of Well-being

The theory that a person’s life goes well for them to the extent that their desires are satisfied

The Doctrine of Double Effect

The principle that it can be permissible to cause a harm as a foreseen side effect of pursuing a good goal, even when it would be impermissible to cause that same harm as an intended end or as a means to the goal (as long as the good outweighs the harm).

The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing

The principle that actively doing harm is morally worse, and harder to justify, than merely allowing a harm of the same size to happen.

Utility Function

A function that assigns numbers to outcomes so that an agent prefers one outcome to another exactly when it gets a higher number.

Money-Pump Argument

An argument that intransitive preferences are irrational, because someone who prefers A to B, B to C, and C to A could be led to pay a small fee for each trade around the cycle and and end up where they started, but poorer.

Risk-Aversion

Preferring a guaranteed amount to a gamble with the same expected monetary value, which EUT represented with a concave utility function over money.

Strict Dominance Strategy

Strategy A strictly dominates strategy B when A gives a player a strictly higher payoff than B no matter what the other players do.

Condorcet Loser

A candidate who would lose a head-to-head majority vote against every other candidate.

Pareto Improvement

A change that makes at least one person better off without making anyone worse off.

Nash Equilibrium

A combination of strategies (one per player) in which no player could get a better payoff by changing only their own strategy, given what everyone else is doing.

Explain the “paradox of deontology” via an example. What kinds of theories does it challenge?

Suppose a murderer will kill five innocent people unless you kill one innocent person yourself. A deontological constraint against killing says you may not kill the one, even though doing so would mean fewer killings overall.